I'd Love To Go Back And Teach

I Write Books To Change The World. Perhaps I Can Only Change One Little Piece Of That World. But If I Can Empower Teachers And Good Citizens To Give These Children, Who Are The Poorest Of The Poor, The Same Opportunity We Give Our Own Kids, Then I'll Feel My Life Has Been Worth It.

I Emphasize Teachers Because They Are Largely Left Out Of The Debate. None Of The Bombastic Reports That Come From Washington And Think Tanks Telling Us What Needs To Be 'fixed' - I Hate Such A Mechanistic Word, As If Our Schools Were Automobile Engines - Ever Asks The Opinions Of Teachers.

If We Allow Public Funds To Be Used To Support Our Relatively Benign, Morally Grounded Schools, We Will Have To Allow Those Public Funds To Be Used For Any Type Of Private School.

But For The Children Of The Poorest People We're Stripping The Curriculum, Removing The Arts And Music, And Drilling The Children Into Useful Labor. We're Not Valuing A Child For The Time In Which She Actually Is A Child.

Hypersegregated Inner-city Schools - In Which One Finds No More Than Five Or Ten White Children, At The Very Most, Within A Student Population Of As Many As 3,000 - Are The Norm, Not The Exception, In Most Northern Urban Areas Today.